Free Devil's Shore by Bernadette Walsh

He no longer needed to announce he wanted to see me after our sessions. I knew. They all knew, and the witches no longer chatted in the hallway after our session, no longer lingered outside the studio’s steps. They cleared out of there. So that Simon could fuck me. Like he fucked all his witches.
    There was no longer any pretense that I needed to be seduced, that he cared for me more than his other witches. He knew I was compelled to submit to his every command just as I understood he had to meet with me every afternoon, with me and only me, ignoring his legions of other needy witches. Our blood, our elements, called to each other and we were both slaves to our need.
    I was not proud of what I’d become–a font of endless need–but I was helpless to stop it. I’m not sure either of us even took pleasure in it anymore, yet every afternoon we were there. Together.
      After Claire turned the key in the lock Simon looked at me, deep black hollows beneath his eyes. “Take off your clothes and lie face down on the floor.”
    I did as I was told, taking my customary place within the circle of candles.
    “Spread them. Wider.”
    I dutifully spread my legs. His hand pressed down on my back, crushing my nipples into the cold wood floor.
    A familiar musty smell filled the room and entered my mouth. Something was different this time. The air was heavier. My old scar tingled.
    Simon didn’t attempt to woo me or seduce me with foreplay. He spread my legs wider. His nails clawed my bare back, drawing blood. I cried out in pain. As he entered me he continued to scrape the skin of my back and tear at my flesh. All the while he growled into my ear, “Mine, mine, mine.”
    Blood poured from my wounds, covering the floor. This was no longer pleasure mixed with pain. This was agony. “Stop it, Simon. Please.”
    My pleas only excited him and he crushed me beneath him. He withdrew from me and I cried with relief. “Oh, thank God. I couldn’t take much more.” I tried to lift myself from the floor.
    “Shut up.” He slammed my head into the floor. His nails tore at the flesh of my inner thighs. I cried out again. He thrust himself into me and rode me. Like an animal.
    Before I lost myself to unconsciousness, I turned my head. Claire and Shari, naked and crouched on the floor like two kittens drinking from saucers of milk, lapped from the pools of my blood.
    I woke hours later, my wounds healed, my head clear. I was alone, a note from Simon beside me. “ I am leaving for Sag Harbor. I will see you at Samhain. Lock the door on your way out. ”
    As I dressed in the low light of the studio, a cry that sounded like my own came from the small office. I opened the door of the office and the eerie glow of the computer screen lit the dark room. On the screen, a miniature me lay on the floor within the circle of candles, naked. And beside me were Claire and Shari. Claire crouched beside my head, sucked from the center of my forehead. Shari sucked from my right nipple. My eyes were closed, but I was writhing in ecstasy. A gold light emanated from my body. It entered both my coven mates’ mouths.
    “Don’t be greedy, girls,” Simon said, offscreen. “Save some for me.” Simon then spread my legs and drank from between them, the strange gold light flowing into his mouth. My body bucked in orgasm. Shari laughed.
    When there was no more power left to be drunk and the gold light dulled, their greedy tongues detached from my body. The three of them fairly glowed. Beside my lifeless form, Shari and Claire lay on the floor side by side. Simon took turns plunging into them as they all moaned in the ecstasy of my shared power and their shared flesh.
    Roisin appeared by my side. “They’ve been draining you, love. Draining you of your powers.” Roisin’s cold hands stroked my hair.
    I stumbled against her. “I feel sick.”
    She held me up. “They wanted your powers, dear girl. That is all they wanted.”
    My stomach roiled in revulsion at